The history of advertising can be traced to ancient civilizations.  It became a major force during the mid-19th century due to newspapers and magazines.  During the 20th century advertising grew with new technologies such as direct mail, radio, television, the internet and mobile devices.

- The Early Years

Egyptians used papyrus to make sales messages and wall posters.  Other forms of political messages have been found in Pompeii and Arabia.  Lost and found advertising was popular in Anciant Greece and Rome.  Wall or rock painting for commercial advertising is another manifestation of ancient advertising, which is present to this day in Asia, Africa and South America.  Traditional wall painting can be traced back to Indian rock art paintings that date back to 4,000 BC.

In ancient China the earliest advertising known was oral.  Playing bamboo flutes to sell candy.  Advertisements usaully take the form of calligraphic signboards or inked papers.  One of the first advertisements was a copper printing plate from the Song Dynasty used to print square papers with a rabiit logo with "Jinan Liu's Fine Needle Shop" and "We buy high quality steel rods and make fine quality needles, to be ready for use at home in no time" written above and below.

In Europe, as cities & towns were unable to read during the Middle Ages, signs that read "cobbler", "miller", or "blacksmith" would use an image associated with their trade.  Images such as a boot, a suit, a hat, a clock, a diamond, a horseshoe, a candle, or even a bag of flour.  Proprieters use street cars to sell fruits an vegetables in the city square.  The proprietors would use town criers to announce their whereabouts for customers.

The three forms of advertising before the 15h century were: trademarks (moon, stars, etc.), town criers and sign boards.

- Sign-Boards

Retail signage and promotional signs appear to have developed independently in the east and the west.  The ancient Egyptians, Romans and Greeks were known to use signage to announce public events such as market days.  Sign-boards applied to inns and taverns have survived into contemporary times across Britan and much of Europe.

- Great Britan

T F G Coates hailed Thomas J. Baratt as "the father of modern advertising" in London in 1908.  Working for the Pears Soap company, Baratt created an efffective advertising campaign for the companys products, which involved the use of slogans, images and phrases.  One of his slogans was "Good morning.   Have you used Pears' soap?" was famous in its day and into the 20th centruy.

As one of Baratts tactics, he would associate the Pears brand with high culture and quality.  One of his ads was the painting Bubbles by John Everett and hea added a bar of Pears soap in the foreground.   Baratt continued his theme with a series of adverts of well groomed middle-class children, associating Pears with domestic comfort ans aspirations of high society.

He stressed a strong and exclusive image for Pears and the availability through saturation campaigns.   He also understood to re-evaluate the market for changing tastes, and stating in 1907 that "tastes change, fashions change, and the advertiser has to change with them." A tactic that was effective a generation ago would fall flat and stale today.  The idea of today is not always better than the older idea, it does hit the present taste.

- United States

In the United States around 1840, Volney B. Palmer set up the first advertising agency in Philadelphia.   Palmer bought large amounts of advertising space from various newspapers at a discounted rate then resold the space to advertisers at a higher rate.The ad design was still done by the company wishing to advertise.  In effect Palmer operated as a space broker.  In the 19th century the situation changed and complete advetising campaigns including design, creation and execution of the ad campaign.  One of the first full scale complete advertising agencys was N.W. Ayer & Son which was founded in New York.  There were a number of memorable campaigns, including ones for De Beers, the U.S. Army & AT&T.

By 1900 the advertising agency wad the main point of creative planning.  Advertising was established as a profession.  First agencies were brokers for advertiement space in newspapers N.W. Ayer & Son was the first full service advertising agency responsible for advertising content.

Available advertising space grew rapidly.  The Boston Transcript was published in 1840 and included 19,000 "agate lines" of advertising in 1860, 87,000 advertising lines in 1900, and 237,000 advertising lines in 1918.

104 companies spent over $50,000 in 1893 on national advertising on patent medicines that soon faded away after the food & drug legislation of the 20th century.  There were seven companies who innovated the time: Quaker Oats, Cudahy Meat, Armour Meat, American Tobacco, P. Lorrilard, Remington Typewrites and Procter & Gamble soap.  Two thirds of the top industries were at the top in 1914 in five industries: 14 food producers, 13 in automobiles, nine in soap & cosmetics and four in tobacco.

- France

In the late 19th century, Charles-Louis Havas expanded to services of his news agency.  Havas would include advertisement brokerage, which was the first French group to organize.

1900 and on - United States & Canada

In 1870 advertising increased dramatically. To meet this exanded production and to profit from it, industry needed to recruit workers as consumers of the products.  To influence the populations behavior, industry began mass marketing on a large scale.  Total advertising volume in the U.S. grew from $200 million to $3 billion in 1920.

In the 1910's and 1920's there were ad men that beleived they could target and harness human instincts into subliminal purchase of a commodity.  Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, beleived he could make him a pioneer of modern cigarette advertising.  Glantz argued that it was really the tobacco industry from the beginning that was at the foreforont of modern, innovative advertising techniques.

Under the Secrtary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, the american governemnt promoted advertising.  Hoover delivered an address to the Associated Advertising Clubs of the world in 1925 called 'Advertising Is a Vital Force in Our National Life'.

Julius Klien stated "Advertising is the key to world prosperity." in 1929.

The American Association of Foriegn Language Newspapers became an important for influencing immigrant workers.

Canadian Media

In the 1900's Canadian Newspapers relied on partinaship revenue from subscribers.  It then took a turn to relying on advertising revenue from advertising campaigns.  By 1900, 3/4 of the revenue from Toronto newspapers was from advertising.  Canadian newspaper editorial sections supported either the Conservstive or Liberal party, while the remaining were independent.  Newspapers featured more objectivity and bipartensanship and relied more on advertising revenues proportionate to overall circulation.  A newspaper that appealled to only one party cut its potential audience in half.  The rapid growth in industry in Ontario & Quebec, with rapid settlement of praries produced a more affluent newspaper reading population.  The result was the Golden Age of Canadian newspapers maximizing in 1911.   By 1930, 24% of the Canadas dailies were partisan (A strong supporter of a cause or party), 17% were independent partisan, and 50% were fully independent.

Sex and Psycology in Advertising

A woman pioneer was Helen Lansdowne Resor at J. Walter Thompson Agency.  There were few career choices for women in business, however, advertising was one of the professions.  Women had keen insight into the daily nessecities of the household because of their skill, which is crucial for advertising to get the message across.

Helen Lansdowne created a sex appeal ad for the Woodbury Soap company in 1911.  It was the first to feature sexual touch in an ad, and claimed that if women used the soap, they would have "Skin You Love To Touch". The ad was successfull, and they used the ad until the 1940's.  It featured a weeks supply of soap and a color print for 10 cents.

- Nudity in Advertisements

In 1936 companies started to show nudity in advertisements.  Woodbury was one of the first.   The ad was known as "The Sun Bath" and featured a woman lying nude on stairs with their back to the camera.   Many celebrities appeared in Woodbury Soap advertisements.

The comparison for interntational nudity in advertisements in Brazil, Canada, Germany, China, South Korea, Thialand and the United States reveals that they have the most demure ads, while Germany and Thailand have more parts of the female body exposed.  There is not much variation in male appearance.

- Psycology in Advertisements

Psycologists Walter D. Scott and John B. Watson contributed in the field of psycological advertising in the 20th century.  Scott said "Man has been called the reasoning animal but he could with greater truthfulness be called the creature of suggestion.  He is reasonable, but he is to a greater extent suggestible".  This was done using a direct command to the consumer.  Love, hate and fear.  This type of advertising was very effective and suited the changing social context.

- Racial Themes

In the 1950's and 1960's (before the Civil Rights Movement), black people were missing from mainstream (white) advertising.  Those who did appear followed a heiarchy of skin color, where those with lighter skin tones were seen as being more socially acceptable than dark skinned black people.

National Corporations before the 1960's ignored the African American Market, and paid little attention to working with black merchants.  That was until Pepsi, who hired mostly all African American people, fighting for parity with Coca-Cola.  The upstart soda brand hired black promoters to penetrate deep into black markets across the South and Urban North.   In the 1940's, journalist Stepanie Capparell interviewed six men who were on the team:

"The team members had a grueling schedule, working seven days a week, morning and night, for weeks on end.  They visited bottlers, churches, "ladies groups", schools, college campuses, YMCA's, community centers, insurance conventions, teacher and doctor conferences, and various civic organizations.  They got famous jazzmen such as Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton to give shout-out's for Pepsi from the stage.  No group was too large or too small to target for a promotion."

Pepsi avoided the stereotypical images common in the major media that depicted one-dimensional Aunt Jemimas and Uncle Bens whose role was to draw a smile from white customers.   Instead it portrayed black customers as self-confident middle-class citizens who showed very good taste in their soft drinks.  Pepsi bottles were twice the size.

By the latee 1960's, more than a few token blacks were hired at advertising agencies, and the sensitivity to the problem increased.  The leading black magazines Essence and Jet routinely deplored racism in mainstream media.  In the 21st Century, they ran a dozen ads per year for skin lighteners that were associated with "racism and White supremacy".

An ad for a racial food item

- Tobacco and the Advetising Market

Tobacco smokers got a fear in the tobacoo industry for fears of cancer, which turned to advertisers for help in falling consumer demand and increased regulation.  British and American agencies seperately arrived at similar solutions.  The Tobacco Manufactirers' Standing Committee in Britan each assuaged public anxieties and encouraged the misinterpretation that the cigarette makers were resolving the issues with filters and low tar formulations.  The public relations approach was successful in the short run, howere medical evidence led to the fall in smoking, heavier taxation, and increased regulation.  The agencies responded with sophisticated advertising to encourage adolescent smokers, and to recruit new smokers in less-developed foriegn markets.

- Cable Television in the 1980's and 1990's

Cable Television was introduced in the 1980's and 1990's, and channels such as MTV became popular.  MTV pioneered the concept of the music video, and ushered in a new type of advertising: the customer tunes in for the advertising message, rather than a by-product or afterthought.  As cable & satellite television became prevalent, specialty channels emergeed, with channels completey dedicated to advertising (such as QVC, Home Shopping Network and ShopTVCanada, the advertiser is tuning in for the message).